A complete analysis of the AI layout of crypto venture capital in 2024: What projects have top VCs such as a16z, Binance, and Coinbase invested in?

Author: Grapefruit, ChainCatcher

Editor: Nianqing, ChainCatcher

In the past two months, the explosion of Agentfi has once again demonstrated the huge potential of the integration of “AI+Crypto” (also known as encrypted AI). In the recently released forecast of the trend of the crypto industry in 2025, a16z partners, Messari, Blockworks and other well-known industry organizations all mentioned that the combination of “AI and crypto” will be the mainstream hotspot in the crypto market in 2025. The intersection of crypto technology and AI is expected to achieve breakthrough progress, promoting the rise of a large number of AI projects and tokens.

Looking back at 2024, the crypto AI market has ushered in an unprecedented investment boom, with major investment institutions pouring in and the amount of investment rising sharply. In this field, top venture capital institutions in the crypto industry, such as Grayscale, Coinbase Ventures, Binance Labs and a16z, have actively invested in the layout of “Crypto+AI” projects.

In particular, institutions such as Delphi Venture, CoinFund, Coinbase Ventures, Binance Labs and a16z not only “call for orders” but also take action, demonstrating their firm optimism about the field of crypto AI through multiple investments.

On December 24, Messari released the “2025 Crypto Outlook Report”, which showed that crypto AI is the most eye-catching emerging investment theme in 2024. The total financing in this field has achieved a year-on-year growth of about 100%, and the number of financing rounds has also increased significantly by 138%. This article will systematically sort out the layout of the top crypto VCs in the field of Crypto+AI in 2024, as well as the fundamentals of the specific projects they invested in.

Grayscale, Delphi, Coinbase, Binance Labs and other crypto investment institutions have already laid out “Crypto+AI”

As the core force driving industry progress and capturing cutting-edge projects, capital flows and public investment activities have always been regarded as important indicators of market trends. In 2024, the crypto AI market also ushered in an investment boom, with major investment institutions rushing in. The enthusiasm for investing in crypto AI projects is unprecedentedly high, and the amount of investment is rising sharply.

Many of the industry’s top crypto venture capital institutions, such as Grayscale, Delphi Venture, Coinbase Ventures, Binance Labs, and a16z, have announced their active investment and strategic deployment in “Crypto+AI” projects.

Earlier this year (January), Tommy, co-founder of Delphi Digital, publicly stated on the social media platform X that he was highly optimistic about the combination of Crypto and AI, and encouraged developers of related projects to contact him. He also revealed that Delphi Ventures has invested in multiple cryptocurrency AI projects, including the decentralized GPU project io.net, AI blockchain OG Labs, and AI venture capital fund Mythos Ventures. In October, its R&D department Delphi Lab also jointly launched an AI accelerator with the NEAR Foundation to promote the development of projects in the intersection of AI and Web3.

As a venture capital fund established by a16z specifically for the crypto field, a16z crypto is often regarded as an industry vane in the crypto field. Its relevant person in charge has publicly stated many times that he supports the integration of crypto and AI projects. As early as March, media reported that a16z was raising a new fund of up to $6 billion, which will focus on investing in the AI field and plans to use 15% of the funds specifically for the development of AI infrastructure and applications. Among the 21 projects selected for the a16z Crypto Fall Crypto Venture Accelerator (a16z CSX) announced in September, 5 projects are related to crypto AI, including Skyfire, decentralized AI network OpenGradient, GPU project Kuzco, blockchain AI solution Banyan designed for enterprises, and PIN AI. Many AI Agents, such as the GOAT (truth_terminal) project that became popular in October, have received cryptocurrency payment support from a16z crypto partners.

Entering the second half of the year, more crypto venture capital institutions announced their entry into the crypto AI field. Some institutions set up special AI funds, and some institutions increased their investment in crypto AI projects.

First, on June 19, Pantera Capital announced that it was raising a new fund of $1 billion, of which more than $200 million would be used to invest in AI-related projects. Cosmo Jiang, the fund’s investment manager, said that in the next 10 to 20 years, all crypto companies will become AI companies, and Pantera Capital has invested 15% to 20% of its early funds in AI-related blockchain projects.

In August, Grayscale launched the “Grayscale Decentralized AI Fund”, a new decentralized AI trust fund focusing on the AI field, which mainly invests in AI-related project tokens. The first selected projects include AI project tokens such as Bittensor (TAO), Filecoin (FIL), Livepeer (LPT), Near (NEAR), and Render (RNDR), and will be adjusted every quarter based on the holdings. As of December 23, Grayscale AI Fund’s holdings have covered Bittensor (TAO), Filecoin (FIL), Near (NEAR), Render (RNDR), and The Graph (GRT), with a total value of assets under management of approximately US$1.5 million.

Also in August, Binance Labs’ investment director Max Coniglio publicly stated his recent strategy: to promote the development of decentralized applications DApps driven by AI, and has successively invested in decentralized AI network Sahara AI and AI robot platform MyShell. Max Coniglio believes that the combination of AI and blockchain is a force that cannot be underestimated. If the two can work together in the direction of open source protocols, they will jointly create a new era of prosperity. In a recent interview, Binance co-founder He Yi said about the integration and development of AI and encryption: AI technology is triggering a productivity revolution, and its influence is far beyond imagination. Blockchain technology mainly changes labor relations and profit distribution patterns, while AI is a revolutionary technology that directly improves user productivity.

In October, Coinbase Ventures also published a statement saying that its investment strategy has shifted from single cryptocurrency investment to in-depth layout of “Crypto + AI” projects. Its head, Hoolie Tejwani, pointed out that there is a natural complementarity between encryption technology and AI. The two technologies are closely linked like the double helix structure of DNA, and together they lay a solid foundation for the future digital life. In fact, as early as August, Coinbase Ventures had participated in the investment of AI Agent payment projects Skyfire and Payman.

The collective optimism of this series of crypto venture capital institutions towards the field of crypto AI undoubtedly sends a strong signal: in future market cycles, venture capital institutions will launch large-scale and far-reaching layouts and bets in the field of crypto AI.

According to the Q3 2024 crypto investment and financing report released by Messari, crypto venture capital institutions injected more than US$213 million into AI projects that quarter, which not only increased by 250% month-on-month, but also increased by 340% year-on-year.

In addition, there is an obvious trend in Messari’s “2025 Crypto Outlook Report” freshly released on December 24: investors are increasingly interested in the intersection of crypto and AI, and crypto AI has become the most dazzling emerging investment theme in 2024. Not only did the total amount of financing in this field achieve a year-on-year growth of about 100%, but the number of financing rounds also increased significantly by 138%. It is particularly worth mentioning that well-known Web3 accelerator projects such as a16z CSX and Beacon are mostly on the list of projects in the field of crypto AI. This data means that more and more venture capital investment companies are pouring into this emerging field, and the addition of capital will undoubtedly further accelerate the rise of the crypto AI track.

AI investment strategies of crypto institutions: prefer decentralized AI infrastructure and application products

According to the 2024 investment data of crypto venture capital institutions on the Rootdata platform, a16z, Delphi Venture, Coinbase Ventures, Pantera Capital, Binance Labs, Hack VC, Polychain, etc. all participated in the investment and financing of multiple crypto AI projects in 2024. In particular, Coinbase Ventures, Delphi Venture, Binance Labs, Hack VC, etc. were particularly active, and demonstrated their firm optimism in this field through multiple investments.

Coinbase Venture has increased its investment in crypto AI projects since August, investing in the infrastructure of two AI Agent payment projects, Payman and Skyfire; while Binance Labs and a16z Crypto have participated in multiple early-stage projects through direct investment and incubator programs.

As the venture capital and incubation department of Binance, Binance Labs’ investment projects are often regarded by the crypto community as the wealth code for ambushing early coin listings, and have a profound influence. According to the crypto AI investment projects disclosed in 2024, the strategy adopted is to first select the project into the MVB incubator and then further participate in the investment. For example, the investment projects such as NFPrompt (NFP) and MyShell are all projects that came out of the MVB incubator, and most of them are AI application products.

a16z Crypto’s parent fund a16z has a long history of investment in the AI sector, having participated in financing of hundreds of millions of dollars for a number of AI star companies, including Open AI, AI chatbot Character.AI, and AI pharmaceutical company Genesis Therapeutics.

However, according to Rootdat data, from the data of a16z crypto direct investment in 2024, there are not many crypto AI projects that a16z directly participates in investing in in the field of crypto AI. Only two projects, Axal, the AI Agent development network, and Balance.fun, the AI virtual human creation platform, have been disclosed, and Axal is also invested by a16z CSX. It focuses more on participating in the form of a16z CSX incubator. Among the 21 projects selected for the a16z Crypto Fall Crypto Startup Accelerator (a16z CSX) announced in September, 5 projects are related to crypto AI, including Skyfire, decentralized AI network OpenGradient, GPU project Kuzco, Banyan, a blockchain AI solution designed for enterprises, and PIN AI.

In the recently released 2025 Trend Outlook, a16z emphasized that the intersection of encryption and artificial intelligence will become the focus of the coming year. It is particularly optimistic about the development of encryption AI Agent, believing that AI Agent can own and manage its own wallet, operate on-chain transactions such as node verification, etc. It is a truly autonomous AI chatbot rather than human control, and can realize functions such as autonomous verification.

ChainCatcher sorted out the project data in which investment institutions participated and found that most of the projects involved in investment in 2024 were AI technology facilities and application products. Among them, institutions such as Polychain and Pantera Capital tend to invest in AI infrastructure, such as decentralized AI networks, GPU tokenization and AI data; while Hack VC and Binance Labs prefer AI application products.

List of crypto AI projects planned by Coinbase, a16z and other venture capital institutions in 2024

Coinbase Venture’s 2024 Crypto AI Project Investment List

1. AI Agent payment tool Payman

Payman is an AI Agent payment agent solution designed for AI models and developers. It was created in May this year and is dedicated to building payment infrastructure for AI and human collaboration. Developers can integrate Payman’s payment API interface to enable their AI Agent to automatically handle payment transactions between AI and humans. For example, whether it is an AI developer who wants to pay for human help or a human who wants to be paid for working with AI, they can use AI Agent to automatically handle the payment process between the two parties by integrating Payman API.

The core advantage of Payman is to provide AI developers with a complete set of AI Agent payment agent systems, which can handle all payment processes autonomously and intelligently, greatly simplifying the complexity of operations. Payman not only supports legal currency payments, but also supports the use of cryptocurrencies as payment methods, such as USDC.

On August 8 this year, Payman announced the completion of a $3 million pre-seed round of financing, with investors including Visa, Coinbase Ventures, The Spartan Group and other well-known venture capital institutions. In addition, the project was selected for Binance Labs’ MVB accelerator program as early as July.

Coinbase Ventures’ favor for Payman is not only reflected in its financial support, but also in its repeated public support for the project. At the Devcon2024 offline event held in November this year, Payman teamed up with the virtual idols of the Korean entertainment giant HYBE to demonstrate how to use USDC stablecoins to achieve seamless payments between AI and humans.

It is also worth mentioning that the project’s co-founder Tyllen Bicakcic once held important positions in developer relations at the Uniswap Foundation and Flow public chain.

2. AI Agent Payment System Skyfire: Visa in the AI World

Skyfire is also an AI Agent payment solution system invested by Coinbase Ventures. The product was founded by former Ripple executives in June this year. It has designed a complete set of independent transaction processes for AI Agents without any human intervention, such as purchasing and completing any goods required for the specified task.

As we all know, AI Agent will be able to realize functions such as autonomous shopping, ticket booking, route planning, and application listing, but general AI Agent cannot independently complete the final payment process, such as payment of bills, air tickets, website hosting fees, etc. Skyfire is designed to solve this pain point. It has built a complete cryptocurrency payment system for AI Agent, allowing AI Agent to independently perform financial operations such as payment and collection without any human intervention. For example, when a user provides a sum of money to an AI Agent, it can use the funds autonomously to meet the user’s needs. The whole process does not require human intervention, just as convenient as a real assistant using cash or credit card to buy coffee. Therefore, Skyfire is regarded as the “Visa” payment center in the AI field, supporting AI Agent to autonomously handle financial affairs such as payment, collection and savings.

In terms of financing, Skyfire also performed well and received strong support from many well-known crypto capitals. In August this year, it successfully completed a seed round of financing of US$8.5 million, attracting investments from well-known institutions such as Circle, Ripple, and Gemini. In September, Skyfire was selected for the a16z Fall CSX Accelerator. In October, Coinbase Ventures and a16z Crypto CSX announced that they would inject US$1 million of new strategic funds into Skyfire.

As of December 21, Skyfire’s cumulative public financing amount has reached US$9.5 million.

3. Decentralized AI Data Network Vana

Vana is a decentralized data network that aims to create a platform that allows users to tokenize and trade their personal data and AI models. The project originated from a research project at MIT in 2018 and is committed to building a user-owned data pool network, so that users not only truly own and control their own data, but also can independently build AI models, freely decide how to use the data, and obtain corresponding economic rewards by contributing data.

Vana has built a decentralized data market for users, where users can use smart contracts to autonomously control their social data. Whenever the data is used, users will automatically receive rewards. For example, users can provide high-quality data generated on platforms such as Google and Reddit to AI developers for model training and earn revenue from it. This not only effectively solves the problem of lack of AI model training data, but also opens up a new way for users to earn income through their own data.

On September 18, Vana announced the completion of a $5 million strategic financing led by Coinbase Ventures. In April this year, Vana revealed that it had received an $18 million Series A financing led by Paradigm in October 2022, which had never been announced before, and stated that its cumulative financing amount had reached $20 million.

As of December 21, Vana’s cumulative financing amounted to US$25 million.

On December 13, Vana (VANA) was listed on Binance Launchpool.

4. Decentralized AI Network OpenGradient

OpenGradient is committed to creating a decentralized AI network that supports developers to create, distribute and deploy AI models and applications in an open and permissionless manner. OpenGradient not only provides developers with AI development tools, but also supports the secure and seamless integration of AI workflows into web3 applications, and can also achieve decentralized and universal access to AI models.

Currently, OpenGradient is building an EVM-compatible blockchain network that allows developers to deploy AI models by using Solidity smart contracts. It is regarded as the “HuggingFace” of Web3. GitHub for AI developers, Hugging Face is an open source model library that supports users to share various machine learning models and is known as the “Github of AI”.

In September this year, OpenGradient was one of the 21 companies selected for the a16z Crypto Fall Crypto Startup Accelerator (CSX).

On October 10, OpenGradient announced the completion of a $8.5 million seed round of financing, with investors including a16z CSX, Foresight Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Symbolic Capital and others participating.

5. Pond, a decentralized AI model production factory

Pond is building a decentralized AI model network that allows any user to easily create their own AI models and tokenize them to earn revenue. It is regarded as a “decentralized AI model production factory.”

In the Web2 world, there is Kaggle, a data modeling and analysis competition platform that supports developers to compete to build the best AI models. However, the creators do not have the final ownership. Pond hopes to solve this problem by not only providing developers with a series of data and other infrastructure required to create AI models, but also allowing creators to own, control and tokenize their own AI models. It is regarded as the “improved version of Kaggle in the Web3 world.”

Unlike most projects based on the LLM model, Pond is based on a large GNN graph neural network to perform real-time statistics and predictions on-chain data. Compared with LLM, which is better at processing and generating information, Pond based on GNN is better at mining the relationship between data and extracting valuable information from it. It can use the native on-chain data of the encryption industry and learn and predict on-chain behaviors through graph neural network and other technologies. Many new business logics have been derived from the prediction of behavior, such as token price prediction, AI-enhanced MEV and DeFi strategies.

On November 7, Pond announced the completion of a $7.5 million seed round of financing, with investors including Archetype, Delphi Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, etc.

a16z Crypto and a16z CSX Accelerator’s 2024 Crypto AI Project Investment List:

1. AI Agent Development Network Axal

Axal is committed to building a verifiable AI Agent development network for any task. It provides users with a complete set of AI Agent creation tools, allowing users to create their own AI Agent intelligent systems by stating their intentions.

In October, Axal announced the completion of a $2.5 million pre-seed financing led by CMT Digital. Other participants included a16z Crypto Startup School, Escape Velocity, IDG Vietnam, and Artichoke Capital.

At the same time, Axal launched its flagship product Axal Autopilot, an AI Agent-driven trading automation platform that provides users with personalized trading strategies, including price tracking, on-chain transaction execution, and yield management.

2. Balance.fun (EPAL), an AI virtual human creation platform

Balance was originally launched by the E-PAL game companion platform in February this year as a Web3 experience infrastructure, aiming to provide Web2 users with a smooth transition to Web3. The Balance platform introduces an AI-driven system as a core element, supporting users to create personalized AI virtual companions that can participate in games, learning, entertainment, and even productivity tasks to adapt to personal preferences, behaviors, and needs.

In September this year, E-PAL disclosed that it had successfully completed two rounds of financing led by a16z and Galaxy Interactive, with a total cumulative financing amount of US$30 million. In November, Balance.fun announced that it had raised more than US$10 million in sales from institutions through early node sales, including Animoca Brands, Amber Group, GSR Markets, etc.

Currently, Balance.fun is selling nodes, with each node priced at US$599. According to the roadmap, the token ETP is expected to be issued in January 2025.

3. Decentralized personal AI network infrastructure PIN.AI

PIN AI aims to create an open AI network with unlimited access to massive contextual data, allowing AI builders to create a variety of useful personal AI applications. As we all know, the reasoning of AI models is limited by the input data, but currently due to privacy reasons, a lot of data exists in users’ mobile phones, computers and other private devices. PIN AI hopes to mobilize this personal data and turn it into private AI applications, support users to create private AI applications according to their needs, and enable AI developers to provide very daily and practical AI services such as shopping, organizing travel, and planning finances.

The main goal of the PIN Protocol is to enable an open ecosystem for personal AI applications through three foundational layers: Personal Data (with a focus on privacy and data ownership), Personal AI (a helpful and trustworthy companion AI on private devices), and External AI (an open marketplace for AI services).

Enable AI applications to access user contextual data and match user intent with specialized external AI, while always protecting user privacy.

On September 10, PIN AI announced the completion of a $10 million pre-seed round of financing. Institutions such as a16z CSX, Hack VC, and Blockchain Builders Fund (Stanford Blockchain Accelerator) participated in this investment.

Binance Labs’ 2024 Crypto AI Project Investment List:

1. AI content creation platform NFPrompt (NFP)

NFPrompt (NFP) is an AI-driven NFT content generation platform that provides creators with AI content creation tasks such as images, videos, pfp, music, etc. It supports users to easily create stunning works through indicators (Prompt) and generate NFTs with one click to obtain ownership confirmation. It was selected into Binance Labs’ sixth season incubation program in September 2023. The token NFP was launched on Binance in December last year, and it was announced in March this year that it had received investment from Binance Labs.

2. Decentralized AI Data Network Privasea

Privasea, formerly known as Nulink, is mainly engaged in privacy data computing. As early as May 2022, it was selected into the Binance Labs Season 4 incubation program. It now provides solutions to the privacy issues of AI computing data and can support data privacy and security during AI model calculations. In addition, its identity verification program ImHuman has similar functions to WorldCoin and supports the conversion of collected human biometrics into training data for AI models in a data privacy-safe manner.

In March this year, Privasea announced that it had completed a $5 million seed round of financing, with Binance Labs and others participating in the investment;

3. AI knowledge sharing and search platform QnA3.AI (GPT)

QnA3.AI (GPT), also known as QnA3, is an AI-driven Web3 knowledge sharing and search platform that aims to provide users with accurate knowledge in the field of cryptocurrency. It not only provides information access and information acquisition, but also provides complex logical analysis functions for users to make trading decisions. At the same time, it is also one of the projects in Binance Labs’ sixth season incubation plan in September 2023. In February this year, QnA3.AI’s token GPT was launched on OKX, and in March it announced that it had received investment from Binance Labs.

4. MyShell, an AI robot platform

MyShell is building an AI consumer application layer that connects users, creators, and open source AI researchers. By providing a complete set of AI Agent robot creation tools, users can easily discover or create various AI Agent-based applications or robots, such as voice chatbots, language learning assistants, image generation tools, etc. It is also one of the projects selected for the Binance Labs Season 6 Incubation Program in 2023, and in December of the same year, it completed a US$5.6 million seed round of financing with a valuation of US$57 million.

In March this year, MyShell announced that it had completed a $11 million Pre-A round of financing, with investors including Dragonfly, Delphi Digital, Bankless Ventures, etc. In August, it announced that it had received further investment from Binance Labs.

5. Decentralized AI Network Sahara AI

Sahara AI is a decentralized AI network infrastructure that facilitates AI assetization. It aims to help users deploy or build customized, personalized AI products, etc., and enable all AI chain contributors to obtain fair ownership and rewards.

In August this year, Sahara AI announced that it had completed a financing of US$43 million, led by institutions such as Binance Labs, Pantera Capital and Polychain Capital.

In the 2025 roadmap released on December 24, Sahara AI stated that it has launched a data service platform and test network. Users can now receive rewards through data collection and labeling. The Sahara Chain mainnet will be launched in Q3 2025.

Pantera Capital’s 2024 Crypto AI Project Investment List: 1. Decentralized AGI System Sentient

Sentient is committed to building a decentralized artificial general intelligence (AGI) platform through community contributions, aiming to compete with traditional closed-source AI development models such as OpenAI. It supports AI model creators to tokenize them, and encourages users to contribute and expand AI models by using Web3 technology, and jointly builds open source AI models contributed by the community.

In July this year, Sentient announced the completion of a US$85 million seed round of financing, with investors including Pantera Capital, Framework Ventures, Delphi Ventures, Hack VC, etc.

Delphi Digital’s 2024 Crypto AI Project Investment List:

1. Decentralized AI operating system 0G Labs

OG Labs (full name Zero Gravity Labs) initially debuted with a modular AI blockchain narrative, saying it has a scalable DA layer to support AI DApps. In March this year, 0G announced the completion of a $35 million Pre-Seed round of financing, with investors including Hack VC, Animoca Brands, and Delphi Digital.

However, in November, OG Labs announced that it had received $290 million in new funding, including $40 million in seed round financing and a $250 million token purchase commitment. 0G Labs co-founder Michael Heinrich said that once the 0G token is listed and circulated on cryptocurrency exchanges next year, the project will be able to withdraw funds from the token commitment.

At the same time, 0G Labs has transitioned from a modular AI blockchain to building the so-called decentralized AI operating system (dAIOS), which aims to enable the development of on-chain AI applications, of which the previously mentioned modular AI is only a part.

According to Lianchuang’s public statement, the mainnet release of the 0G protocol is expected to be in the first or second quarter of next year.

2. Grass (GRASS)

Grass is a decentralized network resource sharing and redistribution DePIN platform developed by Wynd Network (decentralized Internet proxy network), allowing people to sell idle Internet bandwidth and network data.

Users can automatically share idle bandwidth and personal data by downloading the Grass Chrome browser plug-in and get additional rewards, which is similar to the new concept of earning tokens by using traffic and data. In addition, Grass will convert the collected personal data into AI data sets for developers to use for AI training. Therefore, Grass is also regarded as the data provider layer of decentralized AI.

In September this year, Grass announced the completion of its Series A financing, with a reported valuation of nearly US$1 billion. Investors include Hack VC, Polychain Capital, Delphi Digital, etc. The specific amount of financing was not disclosed. On October 16, Grass token GRASS was officially launched.

On November 25, Andrew Kang, partner of Mechanism Capital, wrote that the development of AI has made data one of the most valuable commodities in the world. Grass has created a data pipeline that most AI companies cannot reach through cryptographic incentive mechanisms. At the current growth rate, it is expected to achieve a high level of nine-digit revenue next year, or even exceed billions of dollars.

3. Decentralized AI Network Allora

Allora was formerly known as Upshot, an NFT stock price protocol. It was renamed Allora in February this year and shifted from an NFT evaluation platform to a decentralized AI network.

The Allora platform can use multiple AI agents to evaluate the performance of an AI model under current conditions through prediction tasks, and distribute rewards to agents based on the quality of their predictions and evaluations. This incentive mechanism enables the models on Allora to continuously learn and improve, and adjust as the market develops.

In June, Allora announced that Allora Labs, a decentralized artificial intelligence network, had completed a $3 million strategic financing, with investors including Archetype, Delphi Ventures, CMS Holdings, etc. So far, the total financing of the Allora project has reached $35 million.

4. Decentralized GPU project io.net (IO)

io.net is a decentralized AI computing power DePIN protocol that aims to solve the problem of insufficient computing demand in the field of AI and machine learning by utilizing distributed GPU and CPU resources. It has built a two-sided market around chips, with the supply side being the GPU and CPU chip computing power distributed around the world, and the demand side being artificial intelligence engineers who want to complete AI model training or reasoning tasks. Its mission is to integrate millions of GPUs into its DePIN network.

In March this year, io.net announced the completion of a $30 million Series A financing round, with investors including Hack VC, Multicoin Capital, Delphi Digital, Solana Labs, etc. So far, the project has raised a total of $40 million and is valued at $1 billion.

In June, io.net token IO was issued on Binance Launchpool; in October, IO token was listed on Coinbase.

Hack VC’s 2024 Crypto AI Project Investment List:

1. GPU tokenization platform Exabits

Exabits aims to unlock the more than $1 trillion AI computing market by tokenizing physical GPUs into liquid financial assets that can be invested in. By fragmenting GPU computing resources and tokenizing them, investors can purchase EGPUs that represent GPU capacity as assets to earn returns.

Currently, the Exabits platform has created a path to GPU-Fi (G-Fi), enabling GPU assets to flow between various financial platforms, while improving the capital efficiency of the entire AI ecosystem, and democratizing AI computing, allowing anyone to participate in the AI computing economy. According to official information, Exabits has provided enterprise-level GPU resources to companies such as EMC, Viggle, Lepton, IO.NET, Aethir, Akash, MyShell, Nebula Block, and Game Killer.

In February this year, Exabits announced the completion of its seed round of financing, but the specific amount has not been disclosed. On December 11, Exabits announced the completion of a $15 million seed round of financing with $150 million, led by Hack VC. This round of financing brings Exabits’ total financing to $20 million.

2. GPU Asset Tokenization Platform GAIB

GAIB, like Exabits, aims to tokenize GPU assets to unlock the trillion-dollar AI computing market and change the way GPUs are financed. On December 13, GAIB announced the completion of a $5 million seed round of financing, with investors including Hack VC, Faction, and Aethir.

According to official sources, GAIB has completed prototype development, will launch a pilot project this month, and plans to launch Alpha products and platform tokens within the next two months.

3. AI Agent Infrastructure Theoriq

Theoriq is a modular and composable AI Agent infrastructure network launched by the Web3 machine learning platform ChainML. By providing relevant AI Agent development infrastructure tools, it supports any user to create their own AI Agent without code operation.

In May, Theoriq developer ChainML announced that it had raised $6.2 million in an extended seed round led by Hack VC.

Currently, Theoriq is in the testnet state. According to the roadmap, it will be launched on the mainnet by the end of 2024.

4. AI image generation robot imgnAI

imgnAI is a consumer-oriented AI image generation robot that allows users to automatically generate images through simple text commands. Its functions are similar to those of text-generated image model products such as Midjourney. However, users need to purchase the native token IMGNAI on the imgnAI platform to unlock more creative tools and functions.

In January this year, imgnAI announced the completion of a US$1.6 million seed round of financing led by Hack VC. It also developed the Twitter AI Agent virtual person @Naifu.

Polychain’s 2024 Crypto AI Project Investment List:

1. Decentralized AI cloud platform Hyperbolic

Hyperbolic is building an open AI cloud platform, and plans to integrate global GPU computing resources through blockchain technology to solve the industry bottleneck problem of AI model computing resource cost and allocation. To this end, Hyperbolic has built a dedicated AI reasoning service platform and GPU market. The former not only allows developers to call open source AI models through simple APIs, but also supports the training and fine-tuning of AI models. The latter allows GPU computing power to be traded like a commodity, supporting users to rent or buy and sell GPUs.

On December 11, Hyperbolic announced the completion of a $12 million Series A financing, led by Variant and Polychain Capital. As early as July this year, Hyperbolic announced that it had completed a $7 million seed round of financing, also led by Polychain Capital. So far, Hyperbolic’s total financing has reached $20 million.

2. Talus Network, an L1 network designed specifically for AI Agents

Talus Network is a L1 network infrastructure designed specifically for AI Agents, which supports any user to create their own exclusive AI Agent. It should be noted that this L1 network is designed based on the Move language and has not yet been launched on the main network. You can apply to join the test network.

On November 26, Talus Network announced that it had completed a $6 million financing with $150 million, led by Polychain Capital, with participation from Foresight Ventures, Animoca, etc. As early as February this year, it also completed a $3 million financing, also led by Polychain Capital. As of December 24, Talus Network’s total public financing amount reached $9 million.

3. Decentralized AI data network OpenLedger

OpenLedger is a data blockchain for AI. It provides the infrastructure for creating specialized language models for specific fields, supports developers to create various AI agents, chatbots, smart driving and other applications, collects and manages specific data through its data network, and uses blockchain technology to attribute it to reward model data contributors and creators.

On July 2, OpenLedger announced the completion of an $8 million seed round of financing, led by Polychain Capital and others.

4. Decentralized AI Network Ritual

Ritual is a decentralized AI network infrastructure that aims to create a system that can create, train, improve and trade AI models openly and without permission. The SDK it provides not only supports developers to seamlessly integrate AI models into any on-chain applications or protocols, but also enables users to fine-tune AI models, tokenize transactions, and perform inference training using encryption schemes.

On April 8, Ritual announced that it had received millions of dollars in Series A1 funding from Polychain Capital, but the specific investment amount was not disclosed. As early as November 2023, it had completed a $25 million financing round, with investments from Archetype and others.

The Ritual Chain testnet was launched on November 19, providing developers with a platform for building AI-native applications.